


Leaving Elysium

by AuditoryCheesecake, uniqueinalltheworld



Series: Sea-Stone Heart [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Angst, Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Okay look this one is happier than the tags make it sound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 19:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7813909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuditoryCheesecake/pseuds/AuditoryCheesecake, https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniqueinalltheworld/pseuds/uniqueinalltheworld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When his lover is turned to stone trying to complete a hero's task, Dorian defies his god and embarks on a perilous journey to bring him back. After all, Orpheus has nothing on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving Elysium

“And I suppose you’re here trying to change the tides.” Dorian jumped, nearly allowing his own tail to slap him, but the sharp, musical voice did not belong to Poseidon. 

A woman sat at the bank of the river Styx, dipping her bare feet in up to the ankles. She wore golden armor as if it was lighter than air, her helmet and spear resting on the ground next to her. Her black hair was cut short, and her bronze skin suffered no adornment. 

Gods had ways of making themselves known. “If that’s what it takes, my lady.” He didn’t bother to bow. He had blasphemed one god already this journey, he might as well make it two. It had been three days since he reached the river mouth, and no amount of magic, trickery, or sacrifices had allowed Dorian in. Each attempt left his nerves burning, feeling closer to losing shape and dissolving back into foam. Surely he could be forgiven for being a little testy. 

“Walk with me for a moment, child of Poseidon.” Athena stood, and Dorian removed his tail to follow her on the shore. 

She came up scarcely to his chin. “You’re shorter than I expected,” he blurted, and flinched. 

“I’m not what most expect,” she said. Then, “you can’t get into the river Styx.” 

“I’ve noticed,” Dorian told her dryly. He wondered if he’d always been this stupid or if it was something only Bull’s death had brought out in him. 

“You are neither mortal nor a child of the gods. You were never meant to set foot there.” 

Dorian bristled. Perhaps he was made of sea foam and Poseidon’s breath, but that was hardly reason to be discriminatory. “I was never meant to do a lot of things,” he snapped. “It’s never stopped me before.”

“You are out of favor with your god.”

“I don’t care,” Dorian snapped. 

“Fascinating.” Athena stared at him with pitiless grey eyes. Dorian wasn’t sure if he was meant to make eye contact with the gods or not. He couldn’t recall it ever being a problem before. “You seek the spirit of the Iron Bull.” 

“It wasn’t right,” Dorian said. “If the test had been a fair one he would have passed.”

“No hero is obligated to complete a god’s task. Particularly when the tasks are fool’s errands.”

“He loved me,” the words felt wrenched from him. “He did it for me because he loved me.”

Athena nodded. “We all perform fool’s errands for those we love.”

“What would you know about it?” Dorian instantly regretted his words. Not enough to take them back, but a little. 

“Once, there was a high priestess. Beautiful, clever, wise. Once, she chose to be mine. Then Poseidon decided he loved her, and so her wants were of no consequence. He raped Medusa on my temple floor, and left me to hold her body while she wept. I vowed never to fail her again, and so I made her into something even a god would be afraid to touch. But there is always a price. There are always more men sent to harm her, and there always will be until Poseidon feels he has cleaned up his mess.” 

Dorian shuddered. 

“I do not tell you this to turn you against your father, cousin,” Athena said softly. “But I need you to understand why there are monsters in this world. Sometimes, saving the thing you love has too high a price.” 

“Not for me,” Dorian said. “Perhaps, if the price hurt him, that would be different. But from me, anything.”

Athena looked him up and down, and Dorian forced himself to meet those impassive gray eyes. “Very well,” she said, She pulled a dagger from her belt and slit open the heel of her palm. Dorian knelt, unsure what was expected of him, and she smeared her blood across his forehead. “Rise and go then, son of Poseidon. You have my blessing, so long as you understand what it means.”

Dorian was startled to find, once he had recovered his wits a little, that Athena’s blood felt just like, well, blood on his skin. It was red and smelled of copper and if Dorian had been given a thousand years he thought he likely wouldn’t have been able to distinguish it from the blood of anyone else. 

He stepped through the mouth of the river Styx. Nothing stopped him. 

The path to the underworld was not silent. He had expected it to be, a sort of grave hush abandoned by all but a few departed souls. Instead Dorian was surrounded by travellers. Most of them were old, but even the younger people stood chatting cheerfully as they awaited the ferry. The scene looked like a pilgrimage or a holiday. He felt a little rude, pushing past them on his way to the front, but none of them even seemed to notice. 

The ferryman leaned on his pole, his shoulders hunched in his tattered cloak and his expression indistinguishable behind his matted beard. “Y’re not buried.” 

“I’m also not dead,” Dorian pointed out. “It’d be a bit unfortunate if I was buried.” 

The beard twitched, and Dorian struggled to keep his face impassive even as a maggot dropped off the side and into the water below. “‘m not s’posed to take people that aren’t buried.” 

Dorian shrugged. “Fine. I’ll swim.” 

Charon glanced down at the river Acheron swirling below them. “It’ll hurt,” he said. The river of pain. Yes, Dorian supposed it rather would. 

“Not enough to stop me.” 

Charon adjusted his grip on the pole. He seemed to be considering something. Dorian could smell his breath from where he stood, the overwhelming scent of rotting flowers. “Y’got coin?” 

Dorian paid in albalone shells, watching and trying not to look too disturbed as Charon placed them into his mouth, eating them with a bone-wrenching crunch. Stray pieces tumbled into his beard and vanished, and Dorian swallowed hard when the ferryman pushed off.

On the other side of the river, Dorian disembarked the ferry only to find himself face to face with a tall woman scratching the ears of the three-headed dog at her side. The dog--Cerberus, Dorian remembered--had to lean down to allow her access to its heads, but despite its size, the creature didn’t look vicious in that moment. Dorian thought with a pang of Bull’s hunting dogs, wiggly, earnest creatures whose master had always been far too soft on them to train them for the kind of brutal work they had been bred for. 

The woman stood upright, and Cerberus glowered at Dorian for interrupting his grooming. Her eyes were a gray-green that reminded him sharply of Bull’s. “You have my sister’s favor,” she said, glancing at where Athena’s blood was tacky across Dorian’s forehead, “or you managed to wound her considerably. Either way, I would be a fool not to welcome you.” 

“I’m grateful,” Dorian said. And he was. 

Persephone--and she must have been Persephone--was solidly boned, her skin dark as tilled earth from her time in the sun. She wore no shoes, and only a simple circlet in her hair. It was made of wrought iron, shaped into the images of fruits and leaves. 

“It’s spring,” Dorian said quietly.

Persephone raised an eyebrow. “It’s early yet. All harvest comes from beneath the ground. Now come. You have an audience with my husband.” 

Dorian shut his mouth and willed himself not to say anything else foolhardy. 

Hades, when they reached him, was far paler than his wife. He did not glitter with gems the way Poseidon always had, but he wore gold cuffs, a gold collar, a golden circlet. Where Persephone’s chiton was soft, the color of good wine, Hades wore stark black, hemmed at the knees. It occurred to Dorian that no one he had seen in the underworld had armor. 

Hades’ face was stern and narrow, but when he saw his wife his lips broke into a soft smile. “Athena favors you,” he addressed Dorian without taking his eyes off of Persephone as she made her way to her throne. It was identical to Hades’, Dorian noted. “She always did favor the brave, spiteful ones.” 

“As do I.” Persephone murmured it softly enough that Dorian didn’t think he had been meant to hear. 

Hades sighed and put his hand over his wife’s. “It makes my job difficult you know, dealing with creatures like you.”

“If you bring back the spirit of the Iron Bull, I would be simply ecstatic to get out of your way,” Dorian offered. 

“He’s already traveled the river Lethe. He will have forgotten his past. He will have forgotten you.” Hades spoke kindly, but without pity. 

“I don’t care,” snapped Dorian. He had made Bull love him once. He could do it again. 

“He has no body to return to. Only a statue.” Hades spread his hands. “I can give a soul back, but I can’t bring living flesh back to a gorgon’s stone. I’m sorry, nephew, but there is truly nothing I can do.” 

“Give him my body,” Dorian told him. “Let me die instead.” 

“And spend the next thousand years explaining to him why I let you make such a bargain? I think not.” 

“But you _can_ do it,” Dorian insisted. 

“No,” Hades snapped. “I can’t. Your souls are too different, and I wouldn’t even if I could. He chose to leave Elysium and try for a second life. Please hear me and believe that _there is no way for me to help you._ ” He sat back heavily against his throne, his fingers pressed into the bridge of his nose. “It may be worth little to you, but I am sorry. My brother...my brother can be a cruel man.” 

Dorian bit his lip, shock heavy in his chest. There had to be something. Some deed he could--

Persephone took her husband’s hand, leaned over to whisper in his ear. Dorian couldn’t make it out, but not for lack of trying. He was long past the point of trying not to eavesdrop on the gods. Hades listened carefully, then nodded, his face breaking into a small smile. 

“Dorian,” it surprised Dorian to realize none of the gods had ever used his name to address him before. He turned towards Persephone. 

“Yes, my lady?” 

Persephone smirked, and Dorian remembered suddenly that she, too, was Zeus’s daughter. “How do you feel about mortality?” 

“Anything,” he whispered. 

She stepped down from her throne. “You understand what I’m asking you.” 

He had an idea. “Yes.” 

She held out a hand, opening it to reveal three pomegranate seeds. “You can never go back.” 

“He’ll be there?” Dorian asked.

“He won’t remember you,” Persephone cautioned. 

“I’ll remember him.” 

She nodded. “It will be very lonely.” _There’s always a price._

“I can live with that,” Dorian said, and took the seeds.

“Good luck, Dorian.” Persephone said. 

Dorian felt each one burst in his mouth, and for a moment all he could see was a blinding green light. His trident felt wrong in his hands, off balance somehow. His armor was lighter. The spots cleared from his vision just in time for him to lash out at something bearing down for attack. He beat it back just as a familiar voice reached his ears.

“Be careful with this one boss, the pretty ones are always the worst.”

Dorian smiled, the taste of pomegranate sweet on his tongue.

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, A had the idea for a Greek mythology AU months ago and it was obviously beautiful but it BROKE MY FUCKING HEART so I had to fix it because she ruined everything and now I accidentally a reincarnation AU. -- U
> 
>  
> 
> Say hi to U at [Eugenideswalksintoabar](http://eugenideswalksintoabar.tumblr.com) and A at [Acheesecakewrites](http://acheesecakewrites.tumblr.com)


End file.
